I’m not the most avid of Star Wars fans, but I have definitely enjoyed the last few recent releases.

I say I’m not the most avid fan because I have yet to go back and watch the original trilogies from back in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

I have caught all other releases since the 1999 prequel - including catching some of the episodes of the Clone Wars series - and when Solo: A Star Wars Story (or simply Solo) came out in May this year, only time constraint kept me from watching the movie then. I had also not begun reviewing movies for this segment.

Han Solo is a pivotal character in the Star Wars saga. A smuggler, a scoundrel, depending on which side you back in the story, but definitely a hero to almost every fan of the movie.

Han Solo was the captain of the Millennium Falcon and one of the great leaders of the Rebel Alliance. He and his co-pilot Chewbacca came to believe in the cause of galactic freedom, later joining Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia Organa in the fight against the Empire.

Solo follows the introduction of Han Solo into the fighting ranks and then eventually into being part of the resistance. Han (Alden Ehrenreich) and Q’ira (Emilia Clarke) are orphaned children in the planet Corellia, who have been forced to steal their entire lives in order to survive.

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Now older, the two lovers have to make an escape from the clutches of a local gang after Han thought he could get away by stealing the precious coaxium -- a powerful hyperspace fuel that is highly valuable -- from the gang’s leader by concocting a really lame fib.

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Solo then joins the Imperial Navy as a flight cadet. From there life just keeps taking these drastic and unexpected turns and Han (you will find out the origin of his other name, Solo, by this point in the movie), together with Chewbacca (Joonas Suotamo), end up in Tobias Beckett’s (Woody Harrelson) crew.

The band of thieves includes Val (Thandie Newton) and Rio Durant (Jon Favreau) who go around taking contracts to “acquire” things for their “clients.

Tobias enlists Han and Chewbacca in the gang to steal a shipment of coaxium on Vandor-1 for Dryden Vos (Paul Bettany), a high-ranking crime boss in the Crimson Dawn syndicate.

This is all happening three years after the escape from Corellia, so Han is still trying to figure himself out at this point. He basically looks up to Tobias as his mentor.

He gets caught up a lot in the underworld life and so the movie dwells on what and how he makes the switch to be on the side of good and not merely profiteering from the tragedy of life under the imperial rule.

This movie is very fast paced although the most refreshing part about it is that it is one of the more “grounded” Star Wars movies. It is more about connection and “human” struggles rather than about “the force” and light saber fights.

It is a crime and heist thriller rather than a space movie. And if you’re into just the right number of plot twists, then this is a movie you have to watch.

The amount of humour you also get in the movie is also just the right dose. Paul Bettany (Donald Glover) and his custom self-made feminine droid will definitely leave you in stitches, as well as Hans’ almost never serious banter with Chewbacca. Round that up with great graphics and you have a movie that you could definitely enjoy with crew, family, or simply with a date. How cool is that?